The foundation of semiconductor technology is currently based upon silicon which constitutes the primary semiconductor of the industry. Solar cell technology, a predominant alternate energy technology, also utilizes silicon as the predominant semiconductor material upon which the technology is based. Fortunately, silicon is one of the most abundant elements on earth. However, metallurgical grade silicon typically has an impurity content in excess of at least an order of magnitude too large for integrated circuit (IC) or solar cell applications. Therefore, in order to produce silicon of a suitable purity for solar cell or IC applications, expensive and complicated purification processes are typically required.
In the case of ICs, these additional purification costs are generally only a small fraction of the overall cost in manufacturing an IC. In contrast, because of the limited efficiency of solar cells, these purification costs are typically a more significant percentage of the overall cost. As a result, technical advances have been made to improve solar cell operational and fabrication efficiency. However, solar energy has been economically limited to remote areas and specialized applications.